Thursday life — painting and spring rejuvenation
Today started out sunny so I finished a painting of a lemon tree; a tribute to one of our lime-lemon trees that was ultra productive this year. I got the camera out for the photo above and then diverted to the land for some spring rejuvenation exploration.
Pot marigolds produce large bright orange flowers and seeds that can be easily planted elsewhere. Once established they bloom throughout the year and survive our winters. Plus, the florets are apparently edible. One of my favourites.
The wild strawberries have started to give fruit and will continue to do so for a few more months. They are tiny, from 10 to 15 mm wide, and semi-sweet. My understanding that they are native… they were here when we arrived. Like other straberries they are easy to pluck and replant and then propagate themselves quickly. It’s a great ground cover crop!
The purple flowers of the rosemary are beautiful and quite long-lasting. It’s wonderful to have such a useful herb also give the land such vibrant colour.
The almond tree is the first of our fruit trees to bloom in spring… and it’s such an exciting thing to see coming out of winter. It’s been doing really well and started producing within the first year after planting… 17 almonds. This is its third season with us!
Our nectarine tree’s flowers are wonderful and promising but the tree isn’t happy; when the leaves come out they quickly suffer from leaf curl. Our friend researched for a natural solution and this year we’ll try spraying diluted milk every two weeks… hopefully it works and we’ll get some fruit to mature!
This plum tree was here when we arrived, and it is the second to bloom in spring. I’m not sure what’s exactly wrong with it but over the years it only produced one mature plum. Hopefully this year will be better.
We have a couple of trees of this fruit that I’ve planed a couple of years ago. Can you guess what it is?
Whilst we tend to focus on trees and plants we put in the ground, one must also appreciate the diverse meadows that naturally pop up every year and allows the the ecosystem to thrive.
And… finally… some pics of the wildlife! :)
Almonds? Neat, hadn't considered that. Given lemon/lime tree I suppose you are in a subtropical climate?